The same year Futaki published her first book called The Tree in the Middle of the World while she was researching for Totoro. I had a hard time finding high quality images from the book, but it is extremely well illustrated. It follows a story about a girl named Cici in a quest to climb the great tree. While the book isn’t available outside of Japan there was an Italian print made in 2020.

After some minor freelance work on Mamoru Oshii’s Gosenzosama Banbanzai!, and Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (a Pierrot film with Katsuya Kondo providing designs), Futaki permanently joined Ghibli in 1991. Pass this point she worked on practically all of the studio’s films. The first point of order was work on Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday released the same year. Great character acting cuts in a flashback scene, and modest character acting across the board, but there is one shot that completely stands out. sakugabooru.com/post/show/127789 an insane display of nearly photorealistic plant animation, at the way the safflowers shake after shows Futaki’s full display of love in her craft. Overwhelming attention to real life references, she even added the frog in just to flex.

1992 came Porco Rosso. Miyazaki’s film just thought up of from a plane advertisement, and one of his most underrated gems. There is surprisingly little animal animation here in the film instead for the first time Futaki dedicates her time to vehicle animation with Porco’s red plane sakugabooru.com/post/show/28418\. Then on a single cut we are treated to a Futaki and Kanada team up on some amazing vehicle and background animation. sakugabooru.com/post/show/28416

In 1994 Futaki worked on two projects. The first was Tomcat’s Big Adventure. A tv movie with character designs and AD by prior Madhouse trump card Manabu Ohashi. Produced by Triangle Staff it brought aboard a fair number of freelancers with several being Akira alumni. Futaki handles a lovely scene with a whale sakugabooru.com/post/show/163098, and later on a part where one of the main characters awakens in a strange town sakugabooru.com/post/show/163097.

The second was on Takahata’s Pom Poko. A very bizarre film if you live outside of Japan, the film focuses on a colony of tankukis that fight the oncoming plight of their forest habitats being destroyed by man. Futaki does a wonderful job capturing realistic Tanuki behavior in the opening moments of the film sakugabooru.com/post/show/25534\. Then when the movie becomes more fantastical we get some bizarre shapeshifting cuts sakugabooru.com/post/show/25549.

After doing brief cuts that weren’t anything special on Whisper of the Heart in 95, we move on two years later to Princess Mononoke sakugabooru.com/post/show/16776\. This primarily the only scene Futaki did for the movie, and wasn’t allotted many other cuts. The scene focuses on the Forest Spirit, reverting back to its ‘base form’. We first see the resulting wind cuts of the kodama blowing in the trees, and then panning down to the forest floor where the Forest Spirit walks. Each step has plants grow in its wake as they also decay as fast as they grow.

Now for the next decade or so Futaki would work on less and less on total minutes of KA in Ghibli films. She did some unidentified cuts on My Neighbor the Yamadas, one cut on Spirited Away, and two on Howl’s Moving Castle. Granted all of the scenes she handled are equally important, and mark important encounters in the film, but didn’t showcase what she was capable of. After doing some assistant AD work on Tales from Earthsea, she then two years later came on to Ponyo.

Ponyo wasn’t anything different than what Ghibli did in the 24 year run the studio had attained so far, but it did feature some of the most effect heavy sequences made in a movie in its run. For Futaki this entailed Futaki’s role, with the lead Ponyo running on a sea of giant fish to save Sasuke. Younger Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi had handled the earlier starting portion of the sequence, and his scene is great, but doesn’t convey the sheer magnitude of city high waves in Futaki’s cut.]Simply put, this is one of the greatest animated cuts ever. The breathtaking scale of the scene is audacious as hell, and Futaki makes sure to leave an impression. sakugabooru.com/post/show/120476

We get some insane opening cuts from Futaki

This scene is especially fantastical with Ponyo breaking into a forward backflip with practically everything moving in frame.

There is a volley of cuts from fish to fish with Ponyo trying to catch the car.


And the closing cuts capture the sheer weight of the see with giant fish swashing mightily against the cliff sides.

The scene is a mastery of everything from Futaki, mastery of frame modulation, detail, effects, character acting, and all things that make hand drawn animation great and irreplaceable as a medium of entertainment .

The next few years saw Futaki working on the last of her filmography. She did cuts on Poppy Hill and Arrietty though in a much smaller KA capacity. On The Wind Rises she dedicates few and far between though is in the most significant cuts with Caproni, Jiro’s imaginary friend sakugabooru.com/post/show/11962\. This is one of the last cuts of true Futaki effects sakuga. When Marnie was There was Futaki’s final film with her animating some great cuts between Marnie and Anna sakugabooru.com/post/show/160176 with a shot reminiscent of her cut in Only Yesterday 23 years prior. She handled some dream sequences earlier on too.

On May 13th. 2016 Makiko Futaki unexpectedly passed away from an unknown illness at the age of 57 (coincidentally the same age Yoshinori Kanada died as well). No word or announcement of a ceremony came from Ghibli, as I can imagine her death was mourned very privately within the core staff.

Makiko Futaki spoke through her animation. As a natural maven, she provoked and delighted the directors she worked under being one of the most intricate and precise animators ever to grace her freelance, and Ghibli projects. Though her very detailed approach didn’t grant her many opportunities (especially on tv anime, as Miyazaki personally attests to) she still managed to fight the odds and become one of the most reputable members of the senior team, and gave some of the most bold and most subtle cuts delivered in the studio's history. May she rest in peace.

Hard for me to see anything beating out Vinland for AOTY. The team did the perfect adaptation again.

galaxy next door too

it wasn’t bad enough for me to wanna give it a 😐 or a ☹️ but also not good enough for me to wanna give it a 🙂

Bleach literally next season lol

Simply exceptional. Thematically rich and full of moments of depth and poignancy. The characters are all incredibly well written. By setting the story in a culture that is inherently violent by nature, and using that context to write a main character like Thorfinn, the author manages to convey his ideas in a clear way - this is not simply a show about Vikings, it's a show about personal growth in a society where violence is falsely equated with masculine ideals

Thorfinn redefines what those ideals are. He's a prime example of how to write a compelling hero.

"I want to be strong and kind like you. A real man."

these gifs are extremely hard

Couldn’t have said in a better way

Is this the part where I tell you I have a Phd in maturity and you need to expand beyond punch kick shows.

I never finished the og series of gintama left at lik 250 or sum. So I started a rewatch because it's been a minute. And forgot how good this anime is

Bleach ain’t coming anywhere close to f***ing with Vinland s2 LMFAO

Vinland AOTY?

You must be forgetting. Summer 2023. Anime is saved once again.

Movie arc adaption .. they ain't ready

cafe terrace

Last episode was

no spoilers

didnt even start yet